Why Salary History Ban Matters in Recruitment

By 2024, more than 20 US states and numerous cities had enacted salary history ban legislation, prohibiting employers and often employment agencies from asking candidates about their past compensation. The legislative intent is to interrupt the pay gap compounding effect: when employers anchor offers to previous salary, workers who were underpaid in their last role carry that disadvantage into every subsequent negotiation. Over a career, this compounds into a significant lifetime earnings gap, particularly for women and minority candidates who face documented starting salary disadvantages earlier in their careers.

For staffing agencies operating across multiple jurisdictions, salary history bans create a compliance minefield. Asking a prohibited question during a screening call exposes the client and potentially the agency to regulatory complaints. Fines in some jurisdictions reach $250,000 per violation for repeat offenders. The laws vary significantly in their scope, application to agencies specifically, and whether they also mandate pay range disclosures, which is the operational challenge that makes training and process standardisation across state lines genuinely complex.

How Salary History Ban Works

Salary history ban laws typically operate in one or more of three ways. First, a strict prohibition on asking: the recruiter cannot request past salary information at any point in the hiring process. Second, a prohibition on using history even if voluntarily disclosed: the candidate may mention their previous salary, but the employer cannot use that figure to set the offer. Third, a transparency requirement paired with the ban: employers must provide pay ranges for roles, which California, Colorado, New York State, and Washington have adopted in combination with salary history restrictions.

The practical implication for recruiters is that the question "what are you currently earning?" or "what were you earning in your last role?", a staple of phone screens for decades, is now prohibited in a growing list of jurisdictions. Recruiters should be briefed on which states and cities have active bans and replace the history question with a forward-looking alternative: "what are your salary expectations for this role?" or "what compensation range would make this the right move for you?" These questions surface the same alignment information without the prohibited historical anchor.

The distinction between asking about salary expectations and salary history is now a standard part of recruiter compliance training in any agency operating across US states. It is not a subtle difference, but it requires deliberate process change, because the habit of asking about current pay is deeply ingrained in phone screen protocols that have not been updated for a decade or more.

Salary History Ban vs. Pay Transparency Law

Salary history bans restrict what employers and agencies can ask candidates. Pay transparency laws require employers to disclose compensation ranges in job postings or upon request. The two often appear together in state legislation but address different sides of the information asymmetry. History bans prevent anchoring to past pay; transparency laws give candidates independent reference points for negotiating. An agency can be compliant with one and not the other if it is not tracking both requirements separately across its operating jurisdictions.

Salary History Ban in Practice

A national staffing agency with consultants operating in California, New York, Illinois, and Texas creates a jurisdiction-specific phone screen protocol. California, New York, and Illinois consultants open compensation conversations with the client-provided pay range and ask only about the candidate's expectations. Texas consultants, where no ban currently applies, follow the same approach as an internal best practice. The compliance lead audits call recordings quarterly and uses findings in training. In two years, the agency receives zero salary history complaints from candidates or regulators across all jurisdictions.